mummia

After Egypt banned the shipment of mummia in the 16th century, unscrupulous European apothecaries began to sell fraudulent mummia prepared by embalming and desiccating fresh corpses.

Tangentially related: The word mummy originally referred to a medicine, now called mummia, made from Egyptian mummies.

During the Renaissance, scholars proved that translating bituminous mummia as mummy was a mistake, and physicians stopped prescribing the ineffective drug.

This began a period of lucrative trade between Egypt and Europe, and suppliers substituted rare mummia exudate with entire mummies, either embalmed or desiccated.

For example, having learned about mummia, I might incorporate it as an item or crafting ingredient in a game:) and a player might learn about this through that, which may inspire them on to something else.

I'm not saying the risks are equal (electricity torture by Russian services is no joke) but it's fair to point out that popular protesters in the USA also get beaten/mutilated/detained/eliminated by State forces and this is not exactly a new problem (see also: CoIntelPro, Mummia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Fred Hampton, etc etc).

Beginning around the 12th century when supplies of imported natural bitumen ran short, mummia was misinterpreted as "mummy", and the word's meaning expanded to "a black resinous exudate scraped out from embalmed Egyptian mummies".

Mummia which is the "medical" use of mummified remains is documented in Materia Medica which is essentially the oldest surviving medical encyclopedia and the documented use of it dates back to at least Imhotep which was an Egyptian physician (before he was made a god).